Frick Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsyvlania. March 2016. After three months in discussion with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, we received confirmation from the PBP legal department of what we already knew, that male and female bare-chestedness is to be treated the same under Pennsylvania law.

Last week I opened my email to find a message from the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police legal department confirming, after three months of conversation, that public female bare-chestedness is legal in Pennsylvania.

Here’s what they wrote:

“CONCLUSION There is no City or State law which expressly prohibits or even addresses the act of appearing bare-breasted in public. Based upon the information provided to the Law Department, the City does not appear to have any legal grounds under the City Code or Title 18 (i.e. the Commonwealth’s Crimes Code) to cite or arrest women for being bare-chested without any additional sexual or criminal behavior associated therewith…

Photographer Anastasia Kuba has learned that although body positivity is important, beauty is much more complex.

Photographer Anastasia Kuba grew up feeling beautiful. She had light eyes, blond hair and big breasts, attributes conventionally defined as such. From a young age, she was showered with attention. But Kuba still struggled intensely with self-esteem. “My self-worth was connected to my looks,” the artist explained to The Huffington Post.

Kuba’s self-identification as a beautiful woman shaped many of her life choices growing up. “There was nothing else I thought I had to offer. I was young — I hadn’t really established my identity yet, who I was.” To support herself in her early 20s, after moving from Russia to the United States, Kuba worked as a topless dancer. It wasn’t a defining moment in Kuba’s life, but an affirmation of what she already felt — that her…

Shame is a feeling of social rejection and isolation, and almost nothing in human emotion can rival its power.

We are social creatures, we feel secure in groups, and when a group sets us outside its boundaries we feel vulnerable and exposed and terrified.

Lone zebras get eaten.

I walk bare-chested because I enjoy the feeling of freedom it gives me. I started quietly walking bare-chested publicly two years ago. The vast majority of my interactions with passersby were and remain neutral or positive, but there was a learning curve in those early walks. A Washington D.C. police officer once stopped me and said, “It may be legal [to be bare-chested], but we’re going to arrest you anyway, because it’s unreasonable.”

He did not arrest me. I had broken no law. He was just trying to use his perceived power to shame me into conformity.

Natrusim-nudism is not about how your look. It is about freedom and being comfortable in your own skin. My wife also has some concerns about her body but once we are at a nude resort they seem to go away too.

Image is from article on ET Online: http://www.etonline.com/fashion/153293_victoria_secret_slammed_for_perfect_body_campaign_topshop_accused_of_body_shaming/

The only place I know of to escape body shaming is a nude beach, resort or campground. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? The only place to escape the unrealistic and material ideas of the perfect body is a place where your total body is on display. Let me explain.

I have spent a lot of time studying fear and anxiety, both generally and how it relates to normalizing female bare-chestedness.

I traveled to New Hamphire this week to attend the trial of the women who asked to be cited after police officers asked them to cover their breasts at a Gilford town beach.

Two witnesses testified that they were mothers and were offended on behalf of their and other children. One said she was offended in her own right, and didn’t want her son to see breasts.

I also just watched poorly made news footage from Woodlawn Beach in Buffalo where women have apparently been going bare-chested with some regularity (according to the hyperbolic reporting) and they managed to find an offended mother who said she was totally fine with topless sunbathing, just not in front of her daughter.

Regarding New Hampshire House Bill 1525, which would amend the state’s indecent exposure law to forbid female breast exposure but not male breast exposure.

Dear New Hampshire Representatives:

My name is Chelsea Covington and I am writing to offer some thoughts on Representative Brian Gallagher’s House Bill 1525, seeking to amend the state’s indecent exposure statute to forbid the exposure of female breasts but not male breasts. New Hampshire law currently treats female and male breast exposure equally.

As you probably know by now, a social movement to normalize female bare-chestedness is gaining traction across the country. Representative Gallagher’s bill is a reaction to a peaceful action that occurred in Laconia, which has one of the few local ordinances barring female bare-chestedness in New Hampshire.

Georgetown University, Washington D.C. December 2015. Who says global climate change isn’t real? 70 degrees on December 13? But it made for a nice normal walk… no negative interactions in three hours.

I walk bare-chested primarily because I enjoy feeling free. My strong secondary reason for walking bare-chested is to normalize female bare-chestedness, so that other women may feel the same way.

The only way to normalize anything is to do it with so much regularity and normality that people stop being afraid of it and start seeing it as conventional behavior. This is my motivation for posting photos and videos of my walks. I want people to see and hear for themselves the reactions (and more importantly the non-reactions) of the public as I walk by.

There exists this misconception that going bare-chested is some disruptive act of revolution and that traffic will stop and babies will cry. Perhaps…

Why does being naked have to be shamed and something to be reluctant about? Why do we have to live like this?

Governments have created so many laws prohibiting public nudity. We’re told by the media, peer pressure, and society to be ashamed of simple nudity. It has passed down from our parents, grandparents, and so on since humanity became so accustomed to clothing.

We should be allowed to be naked anywhere at any time. No joke, exaggeration, or lie.

From a young age, we’re taught to be ashamed of seeing nudity, either of ours or of others. It’s unfair to require clothing in all times and places. Due to this insanity created by society, we have never-nudes.

Every home should be nude-friendly. In fact, the whole world needs to be nude-friendly.

Shaming nudity is a bad idea. It leads to problems like insecurity about our bodies, a lower self-esteem…

I find myself in a dark room softly illuminated by the glow of candles. Outside there is a wild and wooly storm, the wind and rain lashes against and rattles the window. It’s a stark contrast to the warm, welcoming and cosy environment inside. I am on all fours, running through a cat/cow sequence with 20 other gorgeous women, who like me are all naked. Stark, bare, beautiful, and NAKED.

Tonight I experienced my first ever nude yoga class.

Now let me commence with my original comment when someone told me about Nude Yoga.

“Gross, just GROSS. Nope, no, definitely not!’

In my mind I had a visual of a well lit room, filled with naked bodies in uncompromising yoga positions, a rear view vision of downward dog. Shudder.

However, this idea kept presenting itself and after a girlfriend told me about…